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Présentation

Le carnet Found in Wonderland a pour objet de collecter, organiser et confronter les sources relatives aux recherches sur les traductions françaises d'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland et de Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There de Lewis Carroll.

Abstract (en anglais)

Tasting the real thing: Food-related realia in the French translations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

As the saying goes, “We are what we eat” — or more specifically, we only eat according to who we are. In her Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1885), Alice faces a series of food-related elements, such as the strange potion tasting like the very British custard and roast turkey that make her sink or mushrooms that make her grow. But are these flavours the same in the French translations as in the original version? Are they even comparable with what an English little girl would have found in such mixture in the 19th century? What happens if they have no equivalent in the target language because they simply do not exist in the culture of destination? Does the Mock Turtle character’s name make sense in a culture where turtle soup simply does not exist? Each time Alice has crossed the Channel, she has had to leave some of the food she carried with her in order to try new savours. Based on the work of the Bulgarian researchers Vlahov and Florin who developed the theory of realia, this paper aims at understanding and evaluating the way food-related realia have been translated in a selection of the numerous French versions of the English classic.